Does anyone have a roster of rail equipment owned (past and present) by the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village? I'm also looking for the curator who oversees the railroad collections. Can anyone help?

http://rrmuseumpa.org
Kurtrbell@hotmail.com

I believe that would be Marc Gruether (spelling?) who is the Curator of Industry. At least that's who it was several years ago when I was in contact with the museum regarding a piece of equipment they were attempting to purchase. If you email me I can give you his email address from several years ago.

davelecount@juno.com

Kurt,

You are digging into a deep well there. The know that the Ford Museum does not think of itself as a Railroad Museum. They don't answer my rail related enqueries. Yes,I too would like to see a rester of their stea equipment.

Several years back they deaccessioned a number of locomotives and steam engines from the cpllection. Wonder where they went?

Ted Miles

ted_miles@nps.gov

> Several years back they deaccessioned a
> number of locomotives and steam engines from
> the cpllection. Wonder where they went?

I can tell you that:

* the Birdsall Portable Steam Engine was for sale on e-bay in 2001
* the PH&NR 2-4-0 #1 (the 1878 Porter & Bell locomotive mentioned earlier) went to Port Huron Museum
* I still have 11 steam locomotives and vehicles of various types still listed at the museum; there may be stationary engines and at least one steam pump (the rocking beam sort) as well.


Surviving World Steam Project
james1@pernet.net

It's funny that they wouldn't consider themselves a railroad museum, because they are always listed in the Steam Passenger Service directory. (or its much longer, current title) How about placing a telephone call to the museum, instead of asking through a message board? The phone usually cuts through a lot of speculation of who might be in charge to who actually is.

mustang746@earthlink.net

What is the condition of the C&O Allegheny?

glueck@maine.edu

> What is the condition of the C&O
> Allegheny?

C&O #1601 is in approximately the same condition it was in when retired by the C&O in 1956. It steamed to Detroit on its own power, and has been stored inside ever since. They had to cut off the cab roof to get it inside and weld it back on. Some years back, the engineer who ran the switch engine that pushed it into the building related the story.

kevin.r.gillespie@verizon.net

I find it interesting that the railroad-preservation community doesn't think of the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village as a railroad museum. Greenfield Village is a better railroad museum than most railroad museums.

I don't recall the name of their current transportation curator, but the operating equipment is under the very able supervision of John Scott, an alumnus of the Illinois Railroad Museum steam department. The fifty or so stationary steam engines and other power equipment was, as of a few years ago, overseen by John Bowditch, maybe the nation's leading expert in stationary steam. This includes a tandem "gasteam" engine the size of a house, through which visitors can walk on two levels, one of nine originals installed at Highland Park. Every principal style of steam engine is represented. Almost (no Unaflow).

Over the last few years they have vastly improved their railroad exhibits. The Ford Museum contains about half a dozen steam locomotives, a restored Ingersoll-Rand box cab Diesel, a wooden Pullman and reefer, and a 1929 Rocket replica. Henry Ford's private car "Fairlane" is also on the site, as mechanically modernized in the 1980's by a private owner but fairly original inside..

Greenfield Village now includes a small through-girder turntable and a new $5 million reconstruction of the Marshall, Michigan, roundhouse. This structure employes a little of the original materials on the outside, and is modernized on the inside with accessible visitor areas, an inspection pit, and a full machine shop capable of doing the running gear on very large-drivered locomotives - just in case.

On our last visit there, a large 4-4-0 had been moved into the shop and was getting a slow overhaul. John Scott was finishing the overhaul of the running gear of the Mason bogie 0-6-4T. We got to see the tramming of the engine under way, and inspect the new rotating bearing and swiveling steam passages. When was that job was last done on a Mason bogie? The village includes a collection of restored freight cars of typical 1920's types, and a small modern steam crane.

About the only miscues might be the deaccessioning of two trolley cars, including the last DSR Peter Witt in Michigan. Electric traction is no longer represented at the museum, a very important technology that would have been very appropriate to the city-street atmosphere of the village. And I'm told they're selling their wood day coach, another basic artifact that tells the passenger transportation story better than the steel rider cars used on the village's circular railroad.

My favorite exhibit: the patent model for Elijah McCoy's hydrostatic lubricator. A while back we had an inquiry from Detroit's Museum of African-American History about McCoy, father of the Detroit Lubricator Company. At the time I didn't know where to send them other than to pester John H. White, not knowing that the "real McCoy" was on display only 10 miles away.

Aarne Frobom
The Steam Railroading Institute
P. O. Box 665
Owosso, MI 48867-0665

> They had to cut off the cab roof
> to get it inside and weld it back on. Some
> years back, the engineer who ran the switch
> engine that pushed it into the building
> related the story.

I always thought the story went that they had to remove a portion of the wall above the doorway for the engine to pass through. At least that's the story some of the docents on duty tell. If I recall the rear wall may still have the notch with the doors having been modified to fill the gap.

I'll have to check it out when I'm there next month.


davelecount@juno.com

> About the only miscues might be the
> deaccessioning of two trolley cars,
> including the last DSR Peter Witt in
> Michigan. Electric traction is no longer
> represented at the museum, a very important
> technology that would have been very
> appropriate to the city-street atmosphere of
> the village.

Gotta agree that's pretty sad for an outfit that covers every other part of rail transportation. I just hope the stuff goes to a good home. There is an ancient Cleveland car there somewhere.

lamontdc@adelphia.net

Thank you for your report. There are several good things in it that I had not heard. The roundhouse project is a good one, I am glad to hear that it is finished and operational.

Ted miles

ted_miles@nps.gov

> About the only miscues might be the
> deaccessioning of two trolley cars,
> including the last DSR Peter Witt in
> Michigan.

I knew about DSR #3865, sold by the Ford Museum in 1998, but what's the other car they sold? Last I had heard, they had two other electric cars: Fort Collins #26, and Cleveland Electric #162. Did they sell one of them, and if so, where did it go?

Frank Hicks

Preserved North American Electric Railway Cars
fullparallel@wideopenwest.com

Could the other car in question be Lumber District horse car #24 now at the New York State Museum in Albany? This car came over from the Henry Ford museum at about the same time that the Peter Witt went to IRM.

The PRR class Pk wooden coach (1902) at Henry Ford recently has been given to the Newtown Square RR Museum in Newtown Square, Pa.

> I always thought the story went that they
> had to remove a portion of the wall above
> the doorway for the engine to pass through.
> At least that's the story some of the
> docents on duty tell. If I recall the rear
> wall may still have the notch with the doors
> having been modified to fill the gap.

> I'll have to check it out when I'm there
> next month.

> I always thought the story went that they
> had to remove a portion of the wall above
> the doorway for the engine to pass through.
> At least that's the story some of the
> docents on duty tell. If I recall the rear
> wall may still have the notch with the doors
> having been modified to fill the gap.
I recall photographs on display showing exactly that when I first visited the Museum in 1960.

The doorway and part of the surrounding wall were removed, and then reinstalled and rebricked.

I also recall that curved track approach was a factor.

bruceman@stargate.net